At last, Jana Sena Party president and power star Pawan Kalyan has announced the candidature of sitting MP Vallabhaneni Balashowry, as the party candidate for Machilipatnam Lok Sabha constituency.
Though Balashowry’s name had been in the reckoning for quite some time for Machilipatnam LS seat which was allotted to Jana Sena Party as part of alliance, Pawan Kalyan could not make the announcement as several other names came up for discussion. This led to a confusion over the seat.
At one stage, there was a talk that Pawan Kalyan is considering the name of Vangaveeti Radhakrishna for Machilipatnam seat, as he could not be accommodated by the TDP in Vijayawada.
Very recently, the name of senior leader Bandaru Narasimha Rao, who has good equations with top BJP leadership including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also came up for discussion.
However, finally, Pawan Kalyan preferred to field Balashowry, who is a tougher candidate compared to Bandaru or Vangaveeti, because of his local connections and money power. On Friday, Balashowry met Pawan Kalyan to get clarity as time is running out.
After a lot of dilly-dallying, the Jana Sena Party chief okayed the candidature of Balashowry and made an announcement to this effect on Saturday.